


serenity

by BlackSclera



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: 14 y olds arent emotionally equipped to handle repeated exposure to life threatening situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:41:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24587770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackSclera/pseuds/BlackSclera
Summary: Byakuran’s death hadn’t been pretty.
Relationships: Byakuran & Sawada Tsunayoshi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 52





	serenity

Tsuna can smell the scent of burnt skin.

It’s putrid, a near tangible thing that clogged his nostrils and crawled down his parched throat, thrashing wildly like it’s more than just soot and smoke, more than a lingering fragment of a vivid memory. Like it’s _alive,_ he thinks, and although he doesn’t remember everything that happened on that day, his body does.

It remembers the way his bones creaked under the unrelenting pressure of an invisible grip, squeezing and _squeezing_ until there is no air left in his lungs and the blood under his skin has stopped flowing through the tips of his fingers. It remembers the sharp stab of something not quite going through his skin but of metal digging into the middle of his chest, an inch away from death.

And it remembers the smell.

Byakuran’s death hadn’t been pretty. It was over too quick and too slow- the scalding heat of his flames scorching the ground beneath his feet and singeing his skin, rising until his eyes felt dry, dangerous in the way it grew under the palms of his hands and _snapped_ in time with his scream. It surged, burned, and _consumed,_ leaving not even ashes in its wake. Just the distant cling of a ring, the echo of their screams, and the image of Byakuran’s skin melting off his charring bones-

Tsuna blinks. It’s dark but the shadows dance on the uneven paint of the ceiling of his room. The clock ticks, loud, like the thunderous hammering of his heartbeat. Under his eyelids, the memory carves itself so that every time he blinks, he sees the precise moment disfigured lips lift into a smile.

Byakuran had smiled. His hair is damp with sweat and his clothes cling uncomfortably to his skin. _Byakuran had smiled._ Tsuna blinks once, twice, and sees the afterimages trail disjointedly in every direction he glances.

The faint scent of candies twine with the smell of a burnt corpse. Lambo must have left some in his room. He wonders if there are ants scavenging to find it, no doubt hurled at impossible corners and tight spaces. The thought makes him want to scratch at his arms, itchy at the thought of tiny little bugs crawling and crawling and crawling. Up, down, and around, under the edge of his shirt, and into the holes of his ears.

He is overreacting, something whispers. Not quite a voice, but a niggling feeling, familiar. Tsuna realizes he hasn’t blinked in minutes, and does so teary-eyed. The shadows have not stopped moving. Byakuran doesn’t stop burning.

Tsuna did the right thing. He knows it because everything Byakuran has done had been undone.

Selfishly, he is grateful that their memories have been carried into the past. He doesn’t want to know what it would be like if they returned to a life of relative normalcy, unaware of what had nearly taken it away from them.

Unaware of what Tsuna had to do (what to give, what to _sacrifice_ ) to prevent it from happening.

_How does Byakuran do it?_ He’s sitting now, and he doesn’t know when he did that. His feet touch the cold floor and he shivers. He wants to curl his arms around himself, sink his fingers into his skin and ground himself with that slight bruising pain.

Byakuran smiles, and his fingers feel numb. He is afraid of touching anything with them, afraid that it would burn and choke him with the scent of smoke.

_Why?_ Tsuna unsteadily makes his way- somewhere. He walks, leans against the wall with trembling shoulders and chilled skin from cooling sweat. His room is somewhat brighter than he remembers it being moments ago. Time must have passed.

Byakuran destroyed worlds. Brought ruin and destruction to every reality he crossed and ended millions of lives.

_What was it all for?_

His left shoulder crashes into something and his foot slips on uneven ground. The stairs, he realizes, and is glad he doesn’t make a sound. Everyone is exhausted and Tsuna is, too, but his mind is wide awake. His body is sore. At least, the ground beneath his feet has started to warm.

_Byakuran smiles._

Tsuna is outside. The wind is colder, but the pavement beneath his bare feet isn’t. The shadows have stopped curling to trace the line of Byakuran’s lips and the scent of burnt skin is replaced by damp earth. It lingers, still, but it doesn’t block his throat anymore. He wants to feel relieved.

Tsuna isn’t.

_Has that always been there before?_ He thinks, gaze tracing the mild fracture on the concrete of the street. There is also the rust on previously bright red fence gates, white patches of fur on dogs he remembers running away from. The tree that used to stand in their neighbor’s front lawn isn’t there anymore.

Things have changed. He can see that now that they have almost been taken away from him. Tsuna has taken everything for granted. His mother’s cooking and warm welcome, the noise within their house, the familiar paths of Namimori’s streets.

Things have changed, and it’s not that Tsuna hasn’t. Reborn crashed into his life and brought the entirety of Vongola and its responsibilities on his shoulders. Tsuna has learned to fight. Has defeated people who threatened to take away what little that he had. Has learned to stand up for himself, for what he believed in, and for others.

_But,_ he thinks, and he is standing by the riverbank where Haru had once nearly drowned in, adamant in her belief that Reborn was an ordinary child who needed proper parenting, _but I’m still me._

And he is. No-good Tsuna who barely passes his classes with zero athletic capabilities on fields of sports. He still can’t swim, or at least he can’t do it without the help of a pill. Thinking back, there aren’t many things he can do without it. He lacks charisma, doesn’t have much presence to command a room, much less control his friends. He isn’t too sure that he doesn’t embarrass his friends by being associated with them because of all the aspects in which Tsuna painfully and obviously _lacked_.

Things have changed, and Tsuna did, too, but he is insecure and afraid that he is being left behind. That he will be left behind by everyone and everything else.

In the end, Tsuna is still just a normal fourteen-year-old.

An innocent civilian who has been forcibly dragged tooth and nail into the sin that flowed in his blood and tracked his ancestry.

A lonely child who never made any friends and who grew up in a household without a father.

As he stares into the rushing water, something clicks. There is no one around but him, still clothed in his pajamas and ruffled with lack of sleep, and the sound filters in with a renewed clarity. His heartbeat quiets, and the scent that chased him and lingered on his clothes disappears.

_How does Byakuran do it?_

Byakuran had smiled at him. His lips lifted and the fight in his body drained away as Tsuna’s flames lapped at his arms and face, replaced with something almost serene.

Tsuna crumples to his knees and cries silently.

_Gratitude_. That’s what it was.


End file.
